Healthcare options attract medical tourists to Lithuania

Medical tourism – a promising sphere of the tourism business – is quite prospering in Lithuania, since it offers lower prices as compared to many other countries, it also attracts tourists from the post-Soviet countries due to the lack of language barriers, Lietuvos Rytas reports.

Director General of the Lithuanian
medical center Kardiolita, Dariaus
Jonucio, pointed out that local healthcare institutions offer high-quality
services at lower price; and, if a person does not wish to get treatment at
homeland, he or she most often chooses Germany, Lithuania, or Israel to seek
medical help, informs LETA/ELTA.

"Considering the price and
language barrier, tourists from Russia and Ukraine often give preference to
Lithuania where they are always understood", told Jonutis.

There are many Russian-speaking
visitors in the clinic who come mainly from Kaliningrad.

"People coming from
neighboring Russia represent almost 40% of all customers. This is especially
important for the health-care institution. Within one year, medical tourists
from Eastern countries provide turnover amounting to eight million litas,"
noted Jonutis.

The overall health examination cost
in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg is almost ten times more expensive as compared
to Lithuania, and in Ukraine it costs about two-threefold more above the local
price list. People come to Lithuania from abroad mainly to obtain heart
surgery, joint replacement, treatment of gynecological and urological diseases,
eye surgery, or dental procedures, have overall health condition checks, or
undergo plastic surgery, said the head of Kardiolita.

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